A-level results, newspapers, and jumping blonde teenagers

The blurb above the Daily Telegraph's masthead promises the paper's customary approach. Two blondes! Surely they can manage a leap for the inside spread? Photograph: Telegraph

But no. The lead picture is indeed girls, but they're rowing. And not all of the four are even blonde Photograph: Telegraph

The Independent's front-page blurb - like the Telegraph's, only bigger – might be said by some to show the populist touch of editor Roger Alton Photograph: Independent

Its inside pages, on the other hand, are very restrained indeed, with a moderately happy male student in its main image and no blondes of any description. Truly a paper of two sides Photograph: Independent

The Daily Express has the standard lineup of girls, but they're staying earthbound. Indeed, the large advert down the bottom of the left-hand page means they hardly have room to leap Photograph: Daily Express

The Daily Mail manages the full traditional jump shot, with a little added diversity. But don't worry: it's a fee-paying school. And there is an attractive blonde teenager in the middle, jumping highest Photograph: Mail

At the Guardian, of course, it's all about the diversity. And the whizzy diagrams Photograph: Guardian

At the Daily Star, they do away with the fiction that there happened to be attractive girls leaping in the air as the photographer turned up, and goes instead for an actual model: Rebecca Thompson, who as well as getting a B, a C and a D has signed with the Storm agency. Good headline, too. 'Model students'. Wonder if anyone else will have thought of that... Photograph: Star

... apart, that is, from the Sun, which has the same picture and the same headline. But it doesn't consider them strong enough to lead a page, instead pushing it down to the bottom ... Photograph: Sun

... and the Mirror, where the same headline appears in a side column next to a more classic arms-in-the-air picture. (The Mirror's 'model student' isn't Thompson, incidentally, but the Cambridge-bound Alice Gibb, who was also a secondary picture on the Sun story) Photograph: Daily Mirror

The Times, meanwhile, offers its readers a range of emotions, assigning joy to a bloke and making its statutory blonde student pensive Photograph: Times

Yesterday's London Evening Standard, more economically, managed to compress its range of emotion into a single photograph, complete with blonde in foreground Photograph: Evening Standard

Yesterday's London Paper, too, had hugging and smiling – but no leaping. It's possible they were more concerned with other announcements Photograph: London Paper

A-level results day proves that even the Financial Times is not immune to the charms of a smiling face. This is its page three Photograph: Financial Times